Trip Down Memory Lane
by Konsui's Little Brother
Summary: A simple mission gone wrong leaves Roy in a world he shouldn't be in, seeing things he shouldn't see, and he doesn't know how to get out. But, the longer he's there, the more he realizes that he knows where he's at. He just doesn't want to acknolwedge it.
1. Prolog

A/N: Don't worry! Truth Behind Lies is still going to be my main FMA story.

This story is only here because of all the help I've gotten from Xkoon. So thank you Xkoon!

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_His hands were shaking the younger boys shoulders but there wasn't any movement. No sign of life save for the slow rise and fall of the blood soaked chest._

_"Don't you dare die on me, Fullmetal!"_

_The boys normally vibrant eyes, that should have been golden and glareing at him and telling him to 'shut up', were a pale and blank white; staring at everything and nothing at all._

_"Fullmetal! You can't let something this small kill you!"_

_The younger boy still wasn't moving, wasn't waking up like he should have been, and there wasn't anyway that he could carry the boy out of there._

_"This is a command Fullmetal!"_

_The panic in his voice was getting clearer, just like the pain in his arm -his arm and his leg and sides and his back and his head- was getting worse, because this wasn't __right__._

_"Edward?" _

_Help should have been there by now; should have, but it wasn't._

_"Edward?"_

_His hand left the small shoulder, glove stained scarlet, and hit the floor._

_"Ple-"_

_And then the room was spinning and the light turned to almost blinding and the pain increased...And then he was gone._


	2. The Beginning

A/N: I bet every one thought this story had been abandoned, huh? Well, not to worry. I will never abandon any story on this site. It's just that I had this written down for the longest time but I...Somehow...Lost it. ^.^' I didn't want to start a new version of it because I couldn't remember exactly what I was covering. After this chapter though, I'm going to warn you that the writing style might change a little. It has been a while since I started this story and I have different quirks now. Hopefully, I'll still have a few people that will stick with me despite that.

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"What the...Where am I?" Mustang rubbed the side of his head and forced his eyes open. His head was killing him, a throbbing pain located right behind his eyes and all over the left side of his temple, but he couldn't remember why. It was important, he knew it was, but he just couldn't get his mind to focus on why it was important.

He brushed the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something away and shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind. The throbbing sensation increased for a moment and then, like the feeling that he was forgetting something, dissapeared. It was like his head was never hurting him to begin with. And while that wasn't normal, he decided that knowing where he was and how he'd gotten there was a more pressing matter.

The room he was in looked like a study of some sort. There were large piles of books stacked all over the room; on the floor, by the walls, on the desks, in front of the door, at the foot of the bookshelves that lined one wall, they were on every flat surface.

Aside from the books, and the shelves that they were sitting on, the room was pretty bare. There was an oddly familar suit of armor in one corner of the room, covered in dust and cobwebs and clearly it hadn't been touched in years, but the only other thins in the room was a large desk pressed against one wall.

The desk, like the rest of the room, had books and papers all over its top. UUnlike the rest of the room though, the books weren't the only thing on it. There were boxes of chalk and jars of different powders. Pens and jars of ink. And a single, dust smudged picture frame.

Roy couldn't make out what the picture was of from where he was standing but he could tell there there were people in it. At least three of them, maybe more.

He walked over to one of the piles of books, one that wasn't as dusty and grimy as the others, and looked at the title of it.

'_Breaking Down And Reforming The Elements, advanced forms_'.

Just as he was about to pick the book up and look at the one beneath it, a book just as thick as everything else in the room, a creaking sound from the other side of the room caught his attention.

The room was set up so that the bookshelves lined three of the rooms walls, the third on having the door on it. The desk was pressed up against the wall directly oppisite from the door, a perfect view for someone to look over the shoulder and see who was coming into the room with them.

Now, seconds ago, the chair in front of the desk had been empty and there had been no signs of life in the room at all. But now, the seat was occupied by a tall, blonde haired man.

The man was hunched over the desk, a leather bound book spread out in front of him, looking for all the world like he'd been there the whole time. His hair was pulled into a short, low-hanging pony tail and even from where Roy was standing he could see the rims of a set of square framed glasses.

The creaking noise, how ever, was coming from the other side of the room. The door was slowly being pushed open, the books being shoved out of the way as it was. It paused, barely open, and a small head pushed its way through the opening.

Roy's breath caught in his throat at the young boys face. Sun-spun golden hair and peircing golden eyes...The boy looked almost identicle to Edward; the only difference being that this child couldn't have been older than four.

The small boy looked up at the man at the desk but didn't walk into the room and it hit Roy, for some unexplained reason, that the boys was Edward and the man at the desk was his father. And even though there wasn't any proof to that thought, none what so ever, he knew that it was true.

"_Daddy...Mummy wants ta know if yous gonna come to Winwy's wit' us?_" The voice was child-like, but unlike most young boys voices, it wasn't high-pitched or squeeky. It just fit him.

The man at the desk lifted his head slightly and glanced over at the boy Roy knew was Edward. He had the same golden eyes as the boy and the boy had the same golden eyes as Edward. "_No. Tell your mother I said to go with out me._" And then he hunched back over the book as if boy-Edward wasn't there anymore.

The young boy sighed, eyes drifting to the ground, before he slowly backed out of the room. For a brief moment, Roy could see that the door led to a set of stairs and it hit him that the study was in the basement, but then the door was closed and silence settled over the room.

When he looked back to the desk, the older man -the one he knew was Hoenhiem- had dissapeared. The room was as empty as when Roy first opened his eyes.

And then out of no where, the scene in front of him started to ripple. The colors seemed to bleed out and blend together, like photo that someone had gotten wet, and the room itself seemed to be spinning.

Clenching his eyes shut in an attempt to block out the scene, which was bringing the throbbing back, but it didn't work. The colors could be made out, as vauge blobs, even through his closed lids. And then, just as suddenly as it started, the colors stopped moving.

Actually, they seemed to dissapear from his sight.

Roy forced his eyes open, expecting to see...something...new having appeared in the study, only to realize that the study wasn't there any more.

Instead of standing in the corner of the dusty basement, Roy found himself standing in the shade of a tall sycamore tree. The tree, tall enough to be several hundred years old at least, was only a few feet away from a small, two story house.

The house was painted a pale yellow and dark gray shutters adorned each window. There was a small front porch, with a wooden rocking chair that seemed to blend right in with the railing, and an un-lit lanturn was hanging in one of the upper windows. And, with no evidence that proved it and nothing to even suggest it, Roy knew that the house had once belonged to the Elric's. He knew it just like he knew the man had been Hoenhiem and the boy, Edward.

Just in front of the house and to the left of the sycamore, a woman was hanging a basket of laundry up on the clothesline. She had long brown hair, wavy but no curls, and caring eyes. Even though she was wearing a simple blouse and skirt, white and green respectively, and there wasn't anything special about her looks, even Roy couldn't help but admit that there was an aura of natural beauty around her.

Roy put a hand on the tree beside him and closed his eyes. That woman...He knew that he'd seen her before somewhere but he couldn't place where.

_**Hold my head up high.**_

"Fullmetal?" Roy's eyes snapped open, head jerking towards the direction that the voice had just come from. He swore that had been Edward's, his Edward's, voice just then. If the younger boy was here, maybe he'd be able to figure out what was going!

The words had been spoken in the same, strong tone that Fullmetal always spoke in. The words left no room for arguement but at the same time...Roy had no idea what he'd been talking about. Or who he'd been trying to convince.

A quick scan around the hillside revealed that he and the woman were still the only ones near there. Edward was no where in sight and, if he hadn't been absolutely positive that he'd just heard the voice, he's say that it had all been in his imagination. But he knew that it had been there, even if he didn't know quite were 'there' was.

At least he knew he wasn't alone any more. Though hearing his subordinates voice in this place, which he had no idea how he had gotten too, wasn't too reasuring. In fact, it made him lean more towards him having finally gone insane...

The noise of something being dropped pulled his attention back from his thoughts, none to pleasent, and back to the present. Roy turned towards the only place the noise could have come from, the spot where the woman had been hanging up her laundry, and felt his mouth open in a soundless question.

The basket of laundry was laying on its side, clean linen scattered across the ground. Beside it, looking for all the world like the scene had happened hours ago, the woman was sprawled. Her hair had been swept over her face; honey brown eyes clouded and face flushed with fever. She had looked like the very embodiment of health moments ago but now, laying there, she looked as if she had been sick for years. And something in the back of his mind told him that she had been.

Roy went to take a step towards her, to help her or find someone who _could_, when the world around him rippled again.

It was different from the last time. The colors still blended and area around him still swam but...It just seemed different this time. Not so much of a surprise maybe? Whatever it was, the whole thing stopped much sooner than it had last time and he wasn't left with as bad a head rush.

Either way, it was just like the last time. When the spinning stop and he managed to pry his eyes open again it became quite clear that his location had changed. No longer was he standing on the hillside near the house, rather, he was standing in a cemetary of sorts.

Many of the stone markers, simple round plaques, had become run-down and weed-ridden and the few that weren't were clearly fresh. It was near one of these few stones, the ones that had just been put into the ground, that he was drawn to.

The grave-yard was empty save for around this one stone. Two boys, one six and one seven (something else that he shouldn't have known but did), were crouched in front of the marker. Both boys looked as though they'd been crying recently, though niether of them were crying now, but they were completely and utterly alone. And for some reason, Roy knew exactly who they were.

The younger of the two, with large honey brown eyes just like their mothers, is Alphonse before his body was taken. He's sitting in the grass, legs pulled to his chest and arms wrapped around them, staring at the grave as though if he looked away it would vanish forever.

And the other one is Edward. The young blond had one arm wrapped around his younger brothers shoulder, the other hand in a fist at his side. And he looked scared and upset and angry and, beyond that, he looked tired. Tired like no boy his age should.

"Brother...What are we going to do without her?" Al asked, turning his large eyes on his older brother. His voice was quiet but Roy could still hear the anguish in it. The fear. "How are we going to live?"

There was silence for a moment and Roy found himself transfixed by the scene. When Ed spoke, it was with the same determination Roy heard from the boy during each mission he was sent on. "We're not going to Al."

"Brother?"

"We're going to bring her back. With alchemy. Just like...Just like in that book we found in the basement."

Roy wanted to go up and talk to the boys, to tell them not to be stupid and to just leave it be, but he found himself unable to move. He couldn't even open his mouth and shout to them; not that they would hear it, and he knew they wouldn't.

_**Hold my head up high for him.**_

The voice startled the black-haired alchemist. His head snapped up and he spun around to look, because he swore the voice was coming from right behind him, but nothing was there.

Not the tree he'd been standing next to.

Not the graveyard.

Just white.

And then there was color and Roy couldn't see anything. He could feel his world spinning and his vision fritzed and then it had stopped.


End file.
